From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A broken heart (or heartbreak)
is a common metaphor used
to describe the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after
losing a loved one, through death, divorce, breakup, moving, being rejected or
other means. It is an extremely old and widespread metaphor, dating
to at least the Indian Ramayana writings (400 BC-200 AD).[1]

Heartbreak is usually associated with losing a spouse or loved one, though losing a parent,
child, pet or close friend can also "break one's heart". The phrase
refers to the physical pain one
may feel in the chest as a result of the loss. Although
"heartbreak" is usually a metaphor, there is a condition -
appropriately known as Broken Heart Syndrome - where
a traumatizing incident triggers the brain to distribute chemicals
that weaken heart tissue.[2]

Contents

Philosophical views

For many people having a broken heart is something that may not
be recognized at first, as it takes time for an emotional or
physical loss to be fully acknowledged. As Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
states:

Human beings are not always aware of what they are feeling.
Like animals, they may not be able to put their feelings into
words. This does not mean they have no feelings. Sigmund Freud once
speculated that a man could be in love with a woman for six years and not know it
until many years later. Such a man, with all the goodwill in the
world, could not have verbalized what he did not know. He had the
feelings, but he did not know about them. It may sound like a
paradox — paradoxical because when we think of a feeling, we think
of something that we are consciously aware of feeling. As Freud put
it in his 1915 article The Unconscious: "It is surely of
the essence of an emotion that we should be aware of it. Yet it is
beyond question that we can 'have' feelings that we do not know
about."[3]

Religious
views

Buddhism

Regarding the sadness of loss and heartbreak, the Buddha had the
following admonition:[4]

O, monks! Why should every female, male, layperson or priest
always consider that all things they love would one day go away
from them? What is the advantage of taking the said matter into
consideration? Hearken, monks! All fondness and love existing in
the beings lead them to perform physical, verbal or mental bad
deeds. Upon having always taken such matter into consideration, the
being will be able to leave or lighten such fondness and love. O,
monks! That is the advantage that every female, male, layperson or
priest should always consider that all things they love would one
day go away from them.

In
classical references

This biblical reference highlights the issues of
pain surrounding a broken heart:

Psalm 69:20 Insults have broken my heart and
left me weak, I looked for sympathy but there was none; I found no
one to comfort me.

In this Psalm, King David says that insults have broken
his heart, not loss or pain. It is also popular belief that
rejection, major or minor, can break an individual's heart. This
heartbreak can be greatly increased if rejected by a loved one or
someone whom you respect.

Broken
Heart Syndrome

In many legends and fictional tales, characters die after
suffering a devastating loss. But even in reality people die from
what appears to be a broken heart. Broken heart syndrome is
commonly blamed for the death of a person whose spouse is already
deceased, but the cause is not always so clear-cut. The condition
can be triggered by sudden emotional stress caused by a traumatic
breakup, the death of a loved one, or even the shock of a surprise
party.[5]
Broken Heart syndrome is clinically different from a heart attack
because the patients have few risk factors for heart disease and
were previously healthy prior to the heart muscles weakening. The
recovery rates for those suffering from "broken heart syndrome" are
faster than those who had heart attacks and complete recovery to
the heart was achieved within two weeks .[6]

Feelings
associated

The symptoms of a "broken heart" can manifest themselves through
psychological pain but for many the
effect is physical. Although the experience is regarded commonly as
indescribable, the following is a list of common symptoms that
occur: